Must - have UX tips when designing for mobile

Now that we are in the era of mobile phones, ignoring the user experience perspective of this marvel is truly out of option. Nowadays, even kids who go to high school have phones on which they wish to have seamless experience. So, think about the time when you bring them an app that does not work with simple gestures. Would your app fail terribly? That question should not even take time to come up with answers. And if you are still trying to figure out why going mobile-first is the need of the hour, then here is why!

These days, mobile has outnumbered the use of desktop in huge numbers and it is not wise to just ignore the fact that apps should not offer seamless experience. A mobile ui design these days should be best- best in terms of colour, interface, gestures and all possible things that sum up to create an exceptional app. These are the five tips that have to be considered while going completely mobile or introducing your services through an app.

Make the touch more ‘human’

A handheld UI does not have the liability to accommodate the touch of more than one finger. A thumb requires a touch space of 44px X 44px and when designing for mobile, one cannot leave this point unattended. Since most users usually use thumb for interacting with their phone, the touch should be designed as per the size of target.

Design for interruption

Since almost all the activities these days are done using a mobile phone, whichever app you design should welcome interruption. While accessing an app, a user may be interrupted by multiple things- be it call, messages or an email. At such times, your app should not reset or lose the data which the user was looking for before he/ she was intervened by some other activity.

Minimise the clutter

If the desktop version of your site has more functionalities or options, it is not necessary that your m-site or app should have all of them. A cluttered UI will only hamper user experience. A mobile site or an app cannot work without content, but ensuring that adequate content is included is important. Let your users find what they are looking for in a jiffy rather than setting them in a loop of confusion with unnecessary content.

Test enough and test with real, genuine users

Crafting a mobile ui design can be a bit tricky. You can never really predict how your users are going to react over functionality or a feature that you have included in the designed UI. The best way to test if the UI is designed as per the user’s interests is by doing user testing. Testing does not mean merely arranging an FGD but carrying out in-depth interviews with each user to know about their likes and dislikes. This will help in speculating what are the positives and drawbacks in your design. Considering all the points that are derived from the users, you will be able to eventually make improvements and deliver better user experience.

Conclusion

Mobile UI is an entirely different entity as compared to desktop and designing for mobile should be carefully done just like you do for any website. You are designing an app not for yourself but for your users, users that are human!